Personnel in the Central Service Room (CSR) or the Sterile Processing Department (SPD) of hospitals are charged with the responsibility of packaging surgical supplies to ensure the sterility of the packaged contents from the point of sterilization to the point of reuse. Surgical supplies that are candidates for being reused include clamps, scalpel blade handles, retractors, forceps and scissors. These supplies can be placed in stainless steel instrument trays while softer goods such as surgeon towels, drapes and gowns are packaged. The instrument tray and package are generally wrapped with two sheets of material commonly known as sterilization wrap.
The sterilization wrap is usually a woven or a nonwoven material that is wrapped around the tray or package in a certain prescribed manner to permit entry of sterilizing vapor/gas for sterilization purposes while denying ingress of contaminants such as bacteria and other infectious causing material. Current sterilization procedures often call for double wrapping in that the contents are wrapped into two sterilization sheets either sequentially or simultaneously. The sterilization-wrapped package is placed into an autoclave that sterilizes the contents by heat and steam. Alternatively, ethylene oxide sterilization or hydrogen peroxide gas plasma sterilization may be employed.
After sterilization, the sterilization wrap and associated contents are typically taken to a prescribed area for storage. Subsequently, the wrapped package may be taken to the point of use and the wrap removed. Tears or holes in the sterilization wrap that may occur at various points from sterilization to use may compromise the contents. For example, if a large number of instruments are placed into the instrument tray for sterilization the resulting weight on the sterilization wrap could be from 25 to 30 pounds (11.34 kg to 13.61 kg) or more. Sterilization wraps with sterilized contents are sometimes placed onto wire shelves for storage. Sliding of the sterilization wrap with the sterilized contents may cause tearing of the sterilization wrap and necessitate a repeat of the sterilization procedure with a new sterilization wrap.